The present invention related to a device for counting and sorting coins.
In a known device of this kind, a single discharge opening is provided in a moving direction of the coins, behind the sorting-out opening for the coins. The width of the sorting-out opening is adjustable in a direction perpendicular to the guiding edge for the coins. Unsorted coins are transported onto the coin plate of such a device by means of a known vibration chute. The width of the sorting-out opening is adjusted to the diameter of the largest coin to be sorted and counted, so that these coins can pass through the sorting-out opening and only fall out through the adjoining discharge opening as the first kind of coins to be sorted. All the other coins already fall out through the sorting-out opening. They move along the guiding edge by the action of a conveyer belt, and thus are with one edge on the guide rail. However, since the width of the sorting-out opening is greater than the diameter of these coins, the latter are pressed into the sorting-out opening by the action of a spring for supported conveyer belt. Subsequently, the sorted-out, but still unsorted coins are again put on the vibration chute, the width of the sorting-out opening is adjusted to the coin-type whose diameter is the next smaller and the process starts anew. The process is repeated until all the coins belonging to a set of coins are sorted and counted. During each passage, the total value of the coins is determined and shown by a coin identification device. The latter can be composed of a fiber-optical arrangement, for example, such as is known from German Pat. No. 2,547,685 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,144).
It is known furthermore that the above process can be executed to perform the counting and sorting of coins belonging to a set of coins in a single passage. For this, a discharge opening for each kind of coin belonging to a set of coins is arranged along the guideway, starting with the discharge opening for the coins with the smallest diameter and ending with the discharge opening for the coins with the largest diameter.
Both these kinds of devices, which operate at high counting and sorting speeds of up to 3,000 coins per minute, have the disadvantage that coins of a foreign currency, which in diameter correspond to a coin-type of the set of coins to be sorted and counted, may be assigned to the respective coin-type and also be included in the value-count. Foreign coins with diameters between the diameters of two coin-types of the set of coins to be counted and sorted are sorted with the coin-type whose diameter is the next largest, yet as a rule are not identified by the coin identification device, so that there is no error in the numerical count, but the false sorting can lead to packages of coin-stacks that are wrong as to their value. Thus, both the known devices are unable to distinguish coins of foreign currencies, coin-like disks and similar objects not belonging to the set of coins to be counted and sorted, from the coins of the desired set of coins. The known devices cannot, in particular, separate these objects from the guideway behind the coin identification device at high operating speed.